Ahead of its upcoming initial public offering (IPO), Reliance Jio Platforms held a press conference in Mumbai on Thursday. The telecom giant aims to raise Rs 30,000 crore through the issue, which opens for public subscription from October 21 to 23. When Zee Media raised several questions about the IPO during the event, the CEO of Reliance Jio directed them to email the queries, which Zee Media subsequently sent. Below are the questions submitted to the CEO.
1. Since more than 90% of the IPO proceeds are designated to clean up legacy borrowings rather than build capacity, why are incoming public shareholders being asked to refinance historical debt rather than capitalise forward-looking growth?
2. Why did the board opt for a fresh issue that dilutes existing holdings and brings in outside capital solely to retire debt, rather than executing a direct, tax-neutral vertical demerger that distributes Jio shares directly to RIL shareholders?
3. Once global and domestic institutions can buy Jio Platforms directly as a pure-play tech and telecom asset, won’t this listing impose a structural holding-company discount on RIL, permanently capping the parent company’s valuation?
4. With RIL owning ~66.4% of Jio Platforms, every rupee discounted on IPO day transfers wealth from long-term RIL owners to incoming subscribers – was this band intentionally pitched lower to engineer a first-day listing pop, or did pre-IPO institutional roadshows force a valuation cut?
5. With less than 3% of the company available to the market, won’t listing-day pricing reflect artificial supply scarcity and passive index-inclusion mandates rather than genuine fundamental price discovery?
6. Why is not a single 2020 pre-IPO investor or promoter monetising shares at what is being promoted as a landmark valuation, and what are the exact lock-in expiration dates that retail buyers must track?
7. Because Jio Platforms does not own the central “Jio” trademark, what legal firewalls protect listed shareholders if another group company carrying the same brand suffers a major failure, and can brand licensing fees be imposed after listing?
8. With the promoter sitting on both sides of the table, what independent mechanisms ensure that commissions, customer acquisition fees, and shared operational costs with Reliance Retail are set at genuine arm’s-length market terms?
9. As outside public minority investors enter Jio Platforms, what formal, written corporate governance policy determines whether high-margin frontier ventures sit inside Jio or are retained directly at the RIL parent level?
10. Given that a decade of massive capital expenditure has kept return on capital employed (ROCE) hovering around 8%, why should public markets assume capital discipline and shareholder cash returns will materially improve following this listing?
11. Over 3 years, RIL’s share price has traded essentially flat while losing nearly Rs 4 lakh crore in market capitalisation in 2026 alone – how do you defend this prolonged destruction of shareholder value after deploying over USD 125 billion in group capital?
12. At the 2019 AGM shareholders were explicitly told that Reliance Retail would list within five years, but that milestone has now reportedly slipped to 2028 – why should public markets believe this revised timeline?
13. Akash, Isha and Anant, heading Jio, Retail and New Energy, what formal framework governs internal capital allocation when all three multi-billion-dollar divisions compete for the parent balance sheet?
14. Are executive compensation, performance incentives, and leadership succession metrics tied directly to RIL’s share price performance and consolidated ROCE, or purely to absolute balance-sheet and asset scale?
